A group of top Silicon Valley tech companies have filed a rare legal brief stating Trump Administration’s Executive Order on immigration is discriminatory and “departs dramatically from the principles that have governed our immigration law for decades.”

Silicon Valley is stepping up its confrontation with the Trump administration.

On Sunday night, Google, Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Netflix and other prominent tech companies are planning to file legal brief opposing the administration’s contentious entry ban, according to people familiar with the matter.

The amicus brief is expected to be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is expected to rule within a few days on an appeal by the administration after a federal judge in Seattle issued late Friday a temporary restraining order putting the entry ban on hold. The brief comes at the end of a week of nationwide protests against the plan — as well as a flurry of activity in Silicon Valley, a region that sees immigration as central to its identity as an innovation hub.

Companies backing the filing also include Pinterest, Yelp, Square, Reddit, Kickstarter, Github, Glassdoor, Box, Mozilla, Dropbox, Twilio, Zynga, Medium, Pinterest, and Salesforce, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the filing was still being finalized Sunday.

Notably, it doesn’t appear that Apple, Amazon, or Microsoft are party to the brief. The sources cautioned that the wording of the brief — and the participants — could still change before the filing is made Sunday night.

A draft of the filing says that the entry ban, which barred individuals from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. for at least 90 days and suspended the U.S. refugee program, is discriminatory.

‘The Order effects a sudden, seismic shift in the rules governing entry into the United States, and it departs dramatically from the principles that have governed our immigration law for decades,” a draft obtained by The Washington Post reads. “The Order discriminates on the basis of national origin and religion. It closes our borders to the world’s most vulnerable people, such as those fleeing the devastation of war. And it establishes discretionary and arbitrary rules for admission to this country, even by immigrants who have lived here lawfully for years.”…

21wire

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